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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery's Birthplace

I was really curious to visit Lucy Maud Montgomery's birthplace in New London because this was a location which I had not seen on my first visit to PEI many years before. For one reason or another, my friends and I decided to skip it.

My reason for being particularly excited to visit this trip was to see some examples of original copies of the pages from her actual journals which they have on display. I was eager to see them, having spent the last several years reading through the journals. Seeing her words in her own handwriting and being able to better visualize what they looked like in their original form was really exciting to me.

When we arrived at the house in New London we discovered two tour buses full of Japanese women cram packed inside the tiny house. It was literally impossible to move around comfortably so we waited until they were gone before exploring a bit ourselves. We didn't spent a great deal of time because, well, the house is small and the artifacts few. It's still a joy to see though. I'm glad we made the stop. Here are some pictures from our tour:

The extremely tiny parlor with an extremely narrow couch that looks impossibly uncomfortable.

Lucy Maud, daughter of Hugh John Montgomery and Clara Woolner Macneill, was born in the house on November 30th, 1874. Owing to her mother's illness, she was taken as a young child to her maternal grandparents to the Macneill Homestead in Cavendish. There she was brought up and lived until her marriage to the Rev. Ewan Macdonald, in Park Corner, on July 5, 1911

And then there were . . . the journals!!!!

This is a replica of her wedding dress alongside the original shoes. Her original dress used to be stored here, but it was falling into disrepair so they moved it in order to restore it and keep it safe for posterity. There is a picture of the original taped to the glass cabinet and the replica is fairly exact.

It really was a pleasure to visit and I'm glad we made the time to stop for it. From here we went on to Park Corner (aka Silver Bush) and I'll share about that tomorrow.